


quarantine dreams

by Jothowrote



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post RQG 161, Quarantine, RQG Terms and Conditions, hamid has bad dreams, pastiche on alice in wonderland, so not really at all, technically major character death but in a dream, vivid dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:27:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25312300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jothowrote/pseuds/Jothowrote
Summary: Quarantine leads to vivid dreams. Hamid dreams of curious things.A pastiche of Alice in Wonderland, after RGQ 161.
Relationships: Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan/Zolf Smith
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	quarantine dreams

**Author's Note:**

> The rash of vivid dreams reported from covid quarantine gave me this idea. I guess, since Alice in Wonderland was published in 1865, it's possible Hamid could have read it and it thus inspired this dream - I'm basing my maths on the fact that Tesla was born in 1856 and he is definitely older than eleven in the timeline of the podcast. Enjoy!

It had been a while since Hamid drank alcohol without moderation, and it hit him hard. Together with the strange fatigue from days of sitting around in a small dark space, his body felt heavy and unresponsive. He was still vaguely conscious when Zolf scooped him up easily and carried him back to his room, but not conscious enough to stop his body’s automatic response of curling closer into the warmth and comfort of Zolf’s arms. 

He was deposited gently onto his bed and tucked in, though his body tried vainly cling on. A hand lightly brushed hair from his face before pulling away. 

‘Don’t leave,’ Hamid said, or tried to say. All that came out was a faint murmur that sounded more like a sigh than a word, and the hand didn’t come back.

The world spun inside his eyelids, and Hamid’s body pressed heavy against his mattress. And then the mattress gave way, and Hamid fell into black.

*

He had been dreaming very vividly, these past few weeks. Azu had mentioned the same, when Hamid had cautiously brought it up – they’d agreed it was something to do with being stuck within the same four walls for a long time. Something about their brains being desperate for originality.

Hamid hated it. He saw all his worst memories in his dreams – Aziza, dead or dying, Bertie dead, Grizzop and Sasha gone, again, lost and alone. He lived through the worst parts of his life again and again, every night. He would wake up choking on the heat of his own fireball, Rome still vivid and clear in his mind. They weren’t always nightmares – some were just strange, weird collections of his various experiences, all thrown together and tossed around like salad. 

Azu never shared what her dreams were about, but Hamid could only assume they were along the same lines as his. He wondered if Rome haunted her nights, too.

The dreams abated, somewhat, once they were off on a ship bound for Hiroshima. The constant rocking of the waves helped because Hamid never forgot where he was, even in dreams. Rome had been hot, and awful, but it didn’t have that constant rocking motion like a ship did. It was a good navigation point – it always brought Hamid back to the present.

Then they got to port, and after that followed weeks of building the airship and nursing Earhart back to relative health and functionality. Weeks of sleeping in a hotel room, alone. 

The dreams came back.

One night, while Cel and Azu were experimenting with potions and Zolf was nowhere to be found, Hamid quietly drank himself to unconsciousness in his hotel room.

*

Hamid wakes slowly, first becoming aware of the feel of damp grass against his face and the thick scent of petrichor in his nose. He can hear birdsong somewhere above him.

‘Hamid,’ says Zolf’s voice. ‘Hamid, we have to.’

‘What?’ Hamid mutters.

A hand brushes his hair tenderly.

‘You have to kill the dragon,’ Zolf says. The hand vanishes, and Zolf’s mechanical legs gently click and whirr away.

‘Zolf? Don’t leave. Zolf!’ 

Hamid pushes himself upright off the muddy ground. He frowns at the dirt on his hands and goes to wipe them on his clothes – and then he remembers he’s wearing a very expensive suit and really, really doesn’t want to ruin it.

As he stares at his soft, delicate hands and now-ruined manicured nails, he thinks – for a second – that something is wrong. And then he shrugs, and prestidigitates them clean again.

He looks about a small woodland clearing and his vision adjusts to the dappled sunlight just in time to see white hair vanish between the trees.

‘Zolf!’ he calls. He stumbles to his feet and makes chase, though his shiny leather oxfords are not at all suitable for a mulchy forest floor. He slips and falls twice but struggles right back up to his feet both times, quickly prestidigitating the mud away.

But try as he might, he cannot catch up to Zolf, and eventually he finds himself alone in the woods without even a glimpse of Zolf in the distance. Hamid must stop – he’s completely, irrevocably lost, and he can no longer hear the faint metallic clicking of Zolf’s mechanical legs over his own ragged breathing.

‘Zolf!’ he calls again, pleading. There is no answer. 

Hamid slumps down onto a nearby tree stump, not caring about the dampness spreading onto his trousers. He gathers his breath and his thoughts, head in his hands, staring unseeing into a nearby bush.

Then he blinks; the bush is staring back with two bright red eyes. Hamid stares harder. Beneath the eyes a wide grin opens up, full to the brim with sharp white teeth.

‘Grizzop?’ Hamid asks, startled. ‘What are you doing in that bush?’

Grizzop emerges from the undergrowth, shaking leaves off his pointed ears. He pats his longbow fondly.

‘Hunting, of course,’ he says, with another grin. ‘What did you think I was doing?’

Hamid shrugs.

‘The better question is, what are _you_ doing here?’ Grizzop asks, slinging his bow across his shoulder. 

Hamid sighs wearily.

‘I was trying to follow Zolf, but I lost him,’ he admits.

‘I can help you track him,’ Grizzop offers, cocking his head. ‘It’s what I’m good at – the hunt.’

‘Would you?’

‘Of course! I wouldn’t have offered if I wouldn’t,’ Grizzop says.

Hamid watches as Grizzop searches the surrounding area. His ears flick to and fro to catch the slightest sound and his bright eyes are peeled for any evidence of Zolf’s direction. More than once he snaps at Hamid for making too much noise. It’s hard to be quiet in inappropriate shoes, though, and tiny branches keep snagging the delicate fabric of his expensive suit. As quietly as possible, Hamid removes his suit jacket and, sadly, drapes it over a nearby bough. He rolls up his shirtsleeves but can’t bring himself to abandon his plum-on-black patterned silk waistcoat.

‘Ah-hah! This way!’ Grizzop calls. Hamid snaps to attention after ten minutes of silence and scrambles to follow the sure-footed goblin through the undergrowth.

They run through what feels to Hamid to be endless forest – every now and then Grizzop stops and waits, impatiently, for Hamid to catch up. Hamid feels fatigued down to his bones, his limbs awkward and heavy and slow to respond. Finally, as he catches up once more with Grizzop, he can take no more.

‘I can’t keep this up,’ he gasps. ‘I’m sorry.’

Grizzop cocks his head.

‘His trail leads to just through there,’ the goblin says. ‘You’re so close.’

Hamid frowns.

‘You’re not coming with me?’

‘Not any further,’ Grizzop says. ‘My part of this dragon hunt is over. There’s another I must begin.’

‘Dragon hunt?’

‘Yeah, hunt.’ Grizzop cocks his head. ‘Your dragon hunt.’

‘That’s what Zolf said, too. I don’t want to hunt a dragon,’ Hamid says. 

Grizzop shrugs.

‘It’s your hunt,’ he says again, already looking disinterested.

‘Grizzop,’ Hamid says, just as the goblin turns to leave. Grizzop turns around, ears up.

‘Yeah?’

‘You like it? This endless hunting?’ Hamid gestures to the forest, dappled green and yellow in the sunlight. ‘You’re happy?

Grizzop grins again with those sharp white teeth.

‘It’s what I was meant to do,’ he says. ‘The next part of your journey is through there. Mine is in these woods.’

And he bounds off into the gloom, leaving Hamid alone once more.

Hamid stares at the space where he vanished for a while, before turning slowly and heading in the direction Grizzop had pointed. Almost instantly the woods open up to reveal a small clearing, in the centre of which was a large, over-stuffed chaise longue. The chaise longue seems to be emitting large gouts of smoke as though on fire. As Hamid rounds the sofa, he sees the source of the thick smoke – disappointingly it is Wilde, not Zolf, who is reclining on the purple cushions. Wilde has a pipe in his mouth, and on his every outbreath a mushroom cloud of smoke pours from between his lips and up into the trees, outlining the rays of sun as they streamed down to the forest floor.

Wilde says nothing, even after Hamid coughs politely.

‘Wilde?’ he asks.

‘Yes?’ Wilde smiles vaguely at Hamid. His face is clear and handsome, unmarred and smooth.

‘Have you seen Zolf?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Zolf,’ Hamid says again, trying not to get irritated. ‘I’m looking for Zolf. Grizzop said he was here. Have you seen him?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Wilde says, before blowing a stream of smoke into Hamid’s face.

Hamid bats it away impatiently, coughing.

‘Well, where is he?’

Wilde shrugs, inhaling deeply from his pipe once more.

‘Wilde, please,’ Hamid says, not above begging. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘He was here, yes,’ Wilde says. ‘He was here not long ago. He didn’t stay for long. Always busy, our Mr Smith. Always moving.’

Hamid bristles slightly at the ‘our’ that slips so easily from Wilde’s lips, but he has more important things to get on with.

‘He left? How long ago? Which way did he go?’

Wilde waves a hand.

‘Oh, not long,’ he says, smiling vaguely again. ‘Not long, not long.’

Hamid takes a breath and pinches the bridge of his nose.

‘Which way did he go. Please, Wilde,’ he asks, one last time.

Wilde breathes out a few smoke rings, interspersed with strange smoke shapes. They had wings and horns and claws; they looked almost like dragons.

‘Do you know who he really is?’ Wilde asks, thoughtful. Hamid frowns.

‘Yes, of course,’ Hamid says. ‘He’s Zolf.’

‘Ah, but how can you know the truth of him when you ignore the truth of yourself?’ Wilde asks.

‘I don’t ignore it,’ Hamid argues. ‘I… I know what I am.’

‘And yet you only use it when there is no other choice,’ Wilde points out. ‘You’re scared of it.’

Images flash through Hamid’s mind’s eye – memories of being less than human and terrified out of his mind, curled up on the roof of an opera house. Memories of being surrounded in flame, hopeless and defeated in Rome. Memories of screaming at the Shoin robot about to deliver the killing blow onto Azu, the scream bursting from his mouth in a rush of heat and flame.

‘It’s… it’s…’ he stammers.

‘The pure and simple truth is that the truth is rarely pure and never simple,’ Wilde continues, a dreamy look on his face. He takes another deep puff of his pipe. The smoke shapes he breathes out look like dragons taking flight.

Hamid sighs. 

‘I just want to know where Zolf went,’ he says, finally.

‘You’ll find him, eventually,’ Wilde says, when he runs out of smoke. 

Hamid growls in frustration. He scans the clearing, picks a random direction, and begins to stomp off. Just as he reaches the treeline he hears a cough, and when he looks over his shoulder he can see Wilde, still lounging, now pointing languidly in a different direction.

‘Good luck,’ Hamid hears, as he turns to follow Wilde’s finger. 

The forest ends shortly after he leaves Wilde, and Hamid finds himself on long, rolling hills. It makes a change from the dark, dappled forest, and Hamid feels a little better. It will be easier to see Zolf in the more open landscape, and he can’t be too far behind him.

Later on, after empty field on field on field, Hamid comes across a small farm. There’s a table laid outside of it, bustling with activity, and as he gets closer he recognises Cel sitting at the head of the table, pouring tea into strangely shaped glass beakers. As the tea pours into the beaker, it changes from warm brown to strange, lurid colours and swirls thickly around, emitting gouts of noxious-looking smoke. The long trestle table is covered in beakers of all shapes and sizes, some connected by tubes, most filled with garish liquids that bubble and hiss and occasionally belch toxic gasses.

‘Cel!’ he calls excitedly. Cel looks up from their tea and grins back.

‘Hello Hamid!’ they say. ‘You’re just in time for tea.’

As Hamid reaches the table, he realises that the other occupants at the table are Barnes and Carter – Barnes is in his low-cut shirt, slicing vegetables with his swords in a dazzling display. Carter is asleep with his head on the table and stinks of booze. 

Jasper is at the other end of the table, fiddling with what looks like a pair of mechanical legs. He looks up and notices Hamid watching, and gives a little wave.

‘Cel,’ Hamid says, ‘are those Zolf’s legs?’

Cel looks up, frowning.

‘Oh, no, I don’t think so,’ they say. ‘Zolf wouldn’t let me look at his, the spoilsport.’

‘Have you seen him?’ Hamid asks.

Cel quirks their head quizzically.

‘I have seen him, yes. He’s my friend,’ they say, slowly. ‘Are you feeling alright, Hamid?’

‘No, I meant…’ Hamid groans frustratedly. ‘I meant, have you seen him _recently_? I was following him, you see, and he left me behind.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Cel’s brow furrows. ‘I think he may have passed by recently, but I was so busy working on these that I didn’t really pay attention.’ Cel gestures at the array of colourful beakers in front of them. ‘Jasper!’ They yell down the table.

‘Yes!’ Jasper calls back.

‘Did Zolf come by just now?’ 

‘Yes!’ Jasper bellows.

Hamid’s head hurts.

‘Ah, there we go,’ Cel says, grinning at Hamid. ‘He was here just now.’

‘Did you see which way he went?’ Hamid asks desperately.

‘Oh, I imagine he went down to the castle,’ Cel says, shrugging, already apparently losing interest in the conversation and turning back to their beakers. They pour tea into an empty beaker from such a height that it splashes up onto Hamid’s silk waistcoat. The material begins to smoke and Hamid quickly strips it off and throws it away. 

‘Oh, sorry,’ Cel says, as they both stare at the sad heap of plum-on-black patterned silk. The heap is gently smoking.

‘The castle?’ Hamid asks, looking away from his waistcoat.

‘Yeah, the castle. Look – you can just about see the tops of the towers over the horizon.’ Cel points, vaguely, across the sloping fields. Hamid peers into the distance, following their finger, and can just make out tiny silhouettes of tall, thin towers cresting the hills.

‘Zolf was going there?’ he asks. ‘Why?’

Cel shrugs.

‘I dunno. Why does anybody go anywhere?’ they say, already losing interest and turning back to their beakers. They held one up to the sunlight and squinted at it, their brow furrowed.

‘Cel…’ Hamid begins, nervously. ‘Cel, do you know anything about this… dragon hunt?’

‘Ah, that’s why he’ll have gone to the castle,’ Cel says knowingly, looking at Hamid through the beaker. The orange liquid inside distorted their face strangely. ‘The Queen has called a dragon hunt.’

‘The Queen?’

‘The Queen of Hearts! C’mon, Hamid! Keep up.’

‘The… the Queen wants the dragon killed?’ Hamid is confused – there’s a headache building in his temples that’s making it hard for him to think. He doesn’t want any more cryptic conversations. He just wants to sleep. He wants to see Zolf. He wants to be safe and cosy and _normal_.

‘Yeah, of course!’ Cel smiles maniacally.

Hamid looks down the table at the others. Carter is still asleep, snoring fit to wake the dead. Barnes has finished with the vegetables, and is now lounging on the table bench, his shirt artfully open. 

‘Thanks, Cel,’ Hamid says. 

‘No problem, little buddy!’ Cel replies.

Hamid turns and begins to walk towards the castle spires just peeking over the horizon. They look very far away, and he’s worried he’s lost Zolf’s trail completely. To his surprise, just over the next hill, the castle is suddenly very close – it’s perched on an outcropping of rock, hanging over a turbulent sea. The gates are open, and no one stops Hamid from walking through. There are kobolds hurrying here and there, fetching and carrying with a sense of urgency and all dressed in the same strange uniform. None of them turn to look at him as he passes.

Hamid shivers. He feels exceedingly uncomfortable.

‘Hamid!’ 

The familiar voice cuts through the silence – Hamid looks up to see Azu, who is running towards him with a tormented expression. She is dressed in pink, as usual, but barely glowing at all.

‘Azu?’ Hamid asks, just before she sweeps him into a frantic hug.

‘Oh, you must come quickly,’ she cries. ‘The dragon is almost upon us!’

‘What do you mean?’ Hamid asks, but she is already dragging him through the castle. Two guards, also dressed in pink, open the grand doors to reveal a throne room. Standing beside the throne, holding his glaive, is Zolf.

‘Zolf!’ Hamid cries, tugging away from Azu. ‘I found you!’

‘This is your dragon slayer?’ says a derisive voice. 

‘He can do it, your majesty,’ Zolf says, bowing to the Queen in the throne.

Hamid stares at Amelia Earhart – she is dressed in her usual flying leathers, with her goggles around her neck and her weapon at her hip – but she wears a huge golden crown set with a heart-shaped ruby. It glitters red in the sunlight slanting through the stained-glass windows.

‘You may approach,’ she says, holding out a hand imperiously to Hamid, ‘and kiss my ring.’

Hamid edges forward reluctantly, and bends over Earhart’s ring. It’s her harlequin signet ring, though Hamid was sure it used to be a spade, not a heart.

He glances up at Zolf, who looks pleased.

‘You see, your majesty?’ he says.

‘I… I don’t know what you mean,’ Hamid says, frowning at all the expectant faces around him. ‘I can’t kill a… a dragon!’

‘Oh, but Hamid,’ Azu says, wringing her hands, looking desperately sad. ‘Who else could?’

‘You’re our last chance,’ Zolf says, solemnly, ‘or the world will be lost. You don’t know what it’s been like, Hamid, these past few years. You don’t know what we’ve suffered.’

‘I don’t… I don’t know how!’ Hamid cries.

‘Then you must go and learn,’ Earhart says. ‘Azu, take him to the school. And when you come back,’ she says, leaning in and lowering her voice to a threatening tone, ‘I expect you to be ready to face that dragon, or there will be hell to pay.’

‘Zolf,’ Hamid says, as Azu begins to lead him away, but Zolf is already turning to talk to Earhart and doesn’t appear to hear him.

‘Where are we going?’ Hamid asks Azu, following her as she leaves the castle the way they came and begins to head down to the cove beneath the castle.

‘To school,’ Azu says. ‘You need to learn how to kill a dragon, or it will kill us all!’

Hamid swallows thickly. He doesn’t want to kill a dragon. He wishes Zolf had looked at him.

The ‘school’, as they approach it, consists of a group of kids running and playing in the surf as it crashes on the sand, and an older woman watching them from a nearby rock. One of the kids looks like a young Bertie, crashing through the waves with youthful exhilaration. Hamid turns away. Azu hugs him and then turns back to the castle, leaving Hamid alone on the sand. He wishes Azu would stay. 

Hamid walks cautiously towards the woman – her back is to him, but there’s something familiar about the set of her shoulders in the dark cloak she wears.

‘’ey, ‘amid,’ says a voice he recognises.

‘Hey, Sasha,’ Hamid says. 

Sasha looks older; her short messy hair is shot through with white and much thinner than Hamid remembers. Her face is weathered and scarred, though she smiles warmly as she watches the children play. She moves stiffly as she pats the rock beside her.

Hamid scrambles up and hugs her. She hugs back, unusually, without much flinching at all.

They sit and watch the children for a while.

‘They want me to kill a dragon,’ Hamid says. ‘I don’t think I can.’

Sasha hums thoughtfully.

‘The dragons can be killed,’ she says. ‘We both know that.’

‘But I can’t kill one!’ Hamid says. ‘Not by myself.’

‘You won’t be by yourself,’ Sasha says, comfortingly. ‘We’ll be watching.’

Hamid sighs.

‘That’s… not what I meant,’ Hamid said.

They sit in silence a little longer. Hamid can feel Sasha’s warmth from where their sides press together.

‘I miss you,’ Hamid says.

‘I miss you, too,’ Sasha replies. ‘I miss all of you. But I have a good life.’

Hamid smiles at the children playing. 

‘How do I kill a dragon, Sasha?’ he asks, quietly, after the tide comes in and begins to lap at their rock. He takes his fancy, scuffed shoes off, rolls up his trouser legs, and dips his feet in the water. It's cool and soothing and reminds him of Zolf.

‘You try your best,’ she says.

Azu comes to collect him all too soon and takes him back to the castle. Hamid hugs Sasha again before he leaves, but she already is looking distant. She walks with a cane and a limp, looking old and tired. She’s lived her life without them.

He realises, back at the castle, that he left his shoes on the beach.

Azu dresses him in fine armour and gives him a sword he doesn’t know how to use. When he tries to give it back, she looks so upset that he stops. He stares at himself in the mirror. He looks tired and scared, but he doesn’t have it in him to prestidigitate himself pretty again. He stares at his soft, smooth skin. He looks like a normal halfling playing dress-up. 

He clanks back into the throne room weighed down by his armour and feeling like he is going to be sick.

Earhart appraises him.

‘You look like a fine warrior,’ she says, though Hamid isn’t sure she’s being truthful.

Zolf smiles at him. He looks proud. It helps. Hamid has always wanted Zolf to be proud of him.

‘The dragon awaits!’ Earhart cries, standing up in her throne and pointing viciously at the throne room doors.

Hamid panics.

‘What, already?’ he squeaks, but a kabal of kobolds have already flanked him. They march him out into the courtyard to where there are more kobolds gathered. Hamid looks around and sees others he recognises, too – Cel is there, standing with Azu, watching with bright eyes. Carter and Barnes are there too, though Carter still looks drunk and Barnes’ shirt is low cut to the point that he needn’t have bothered with it at all. 

Grizzop isn’t there, and neither is Sasha, though Hamid searches hard for their faces in the crowd.

‘Behold, the dragon slayer!’ Earhart announces with a loud, booming voice. There are claps and cheers – the kobolds hiss excitedly in draconic. 

The sword is heavy and slips in Hamid’s sweaty palm. He grabs onto it with both hands and wishes his legs would stop trembling. They wait in silence. Hamid is aware of Zolf standing close behind him, watching him. Hamid tries to put on a brave face. The armour is heavy, though, and the sword keeps slipping in his hands.

A bloodcurdling roar from above makes Hamid flinch and almost drop his sword – he recovers just as a shadow falls across the courtyard. He looks up to see a dragon, silhouetted against the darkening sky.

There are shouts of panic, though when Hamid looks at Earhart, she is grinning, bloodthirsty, and staring right at him.

The dragon roars one more time before flying down and landing heavily on the stone floor. Its wings scrape the stone walls as it settles, knocking kobolds flying.

‘Kill it!’ Earhart screeches. Zolf and Azu are smiling at him, looking so trusting.

Hamid looks up into the burning orange eyes of the dragon.

Wait, he thinks. This is a brass dragon, not a gold one. This isn’t Guivres.

‘Apophis!’ he shouts. ‘You’re on our side!’

The dragon throws back its long, sinuous neck and expels a long column of flame into the sky. Its head swings back to Hamid, its nostrils still smoking.

It’s not Apophis, Hamid thinks. This is a young dragon. Hamid isn’t sure how he knows this.

The dragon stares at him straight in the face, and Hamid lets the sword drop. He reaches out to rest a tentative hand on the dragon’s muzzle, and the dragon leans into his touch.

Hamid can faintly hear Earhart screaming in the background, calling for death and destruction. But this isn’t a dangerous dragon. Hamid knows this, just as he knows it isn’t Apophis. 

‘I don’t want to hurt my friends,’ he says, softly, and the dragon huffs out a smoky breath.

‘Hamid,’ says Zolf’s voice from behind him, sounding worried. ‘Hamid, get back! Hamid, we need to quarantine!’

‘Zolf?’ Hamid turns back. Zolf looks scared now, more scared than Hamid has ever seen him – more scared, even, than when they’d first woken up with Mr Ceiling and Zolf had no legs.

‘Its okay, Zolf,’ Hamid says. ‘It’s okay. It’s just me.’

But Zolf is backing away, eyes wide.

‘You forgot about quarantine, Hamid,’ he says.

Hamid turns back to the dragon, and sees the blue veins stretching across its muzzle, crawling up its neck. Its eyes turn from burning orange to electrifying blue.

Hamid screams, and the dragon rears up and breathes a torrent of white-blue flames.

*

Hamid wakes, later, to discover he is curled up on the cold stone floor of the courtyard. The blue-veined dragon has gone, and Hamid is surprised to find himself in one piece. The flames had not touched him.

He gets to his feet and surveys the carnage surrounding him. There are kobolds everywhere, dead or dying, and only a few figures still remain standing. Earhart is dead, sprawled on the steps to the throne room, her crown having rolled off her head and down to the base of the stairs.

Hamid turns and sees a large pink figure leaning over a body.

‘Azu!’ he cries, relieved, though when Azu turns to him her face is sooty and streaked with tears.

‘Hamid,’ she chokes out.

Hamid is already running. He reaches Azu and stares down at the body beneath her hands, completely unresponsive to the healing magic pouring from her palms.

Zolf’s beard is singed. Somehow, this feels like the worst part. Hamid drops to his knees, jarring them painfully on the stone beneath, and tries to tidy Zolf’s braided beard.

‘You said you wouldn’t leave,’ Hamid chokes out, even as he prestidigitates Zolf’s face clean. ‘You _said you wouldn’t leave again_.’

‘Hamid,’ says a voice. ‘Hamid.’

‘No,’ Hamid cries, his tears dropping onto Zolf’s clean, white beard. ‘No!’

*

‘Hamid!’ 

Hamid woke up, snapping bolt upright in his bed. There were fresh and dry tear tracks on his cheeks and his pillow was damp. He looked up to see Zolf in the doorway.

‘Sorry for wakin’ you,’ Zolf said, awkwardly, ‘but we should probably get going. I knocked, but you didn’t answer.’

‘Oh. Yeah. Right.’ Hamid swiped a hand over his face. Zolf’s face was unreadable, which Hamid was thankful for – he didn’t want Zolf’s pity.

‘Bad dream?’ Zolf asked.

Hamid nodded. He couldn’t really remember the details of his dream, but he knew it had been a bad one. He slipped out of bed and pulled on the hotel dressing gown. He paused for a second. Zolf was there, right in front of him. He was still there. 

Hamid walked over and hugged Zolf hard.

‘Oh…kay,’ Zolf said, but he didn’t pull away. ‘You alright there, Hamid?’

‘M’fine,’ Hamid said, his voice muffled against Zolf’s chest. He pulled away. ‘I know we need to work on stuff, and I stand by what I said to Earhart yesterday, but I… I’m glad you’re here.’

‘Me too.’ Zolf patted his shoulder awkwardly. Then, almost as though it was acting of its own volition, Zolf’s hand reached up and tousled Hamid’s hair.

‘Bedhead,’ Zolf grunted. He snapped his hand back. ‘Uh. The others are in the common area. Apparently Azu drank a dodgy potion last night.’

‘Oh dear,’ Hamid said, in his usual fashion. It sparked a small grin out of Zolf.

‘So, I’ll, uh, I’ll see you in there,’ Zolf said, awkwardly shuffling out the door ‘Uh… bye.’

The door clicked shut. Hamid stared at it for a few seconds before turning to get dressed. He smiled the whole time – maybe he and Zolf did have a long way to go before they could be normal again. But it wasn’t impossible. There was a warmth in Hamid’s chest that felt comfortingly like hope.


End file.
